Hypervisor-based virtualization may allow for consolidation of multiple virtual machines (VMs) onto a single physical server platform. The increased utilization of the single physical server platform may increase the risk of service loss in the event of a hardware failure at the physical server. Moreover, a software fault associated with the hypervisor may precipitate failure of an entire virtualized computing system. Redundancy may be introduced into the virtualized computing system through introducing a second physical server and executing a copy of the VMs thereon in parallel with the VMs on the primary physical server.
The abovementioned approach to provide redundancy may require continuous replication of the primary VM(s) on the secondary server (e.g., second physical server), which in turn may consume significant Input/Output (I/O) bandwidth, leading to decreased overall performance. Another approach may include VM “live” migration, where a copy of the primary VM is saved and then transferred to the second physical server. The VM may then be restored at the second physical server. This approach may require a virtualized environment at the second physical server identical to that at the primary server. In the event of a severe hardware and/or a software fault at the primary server, the “live” migration service may be disabled.